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Hey all
Wondering if the collective wisdom of singletrackworld comes up trumps as usual.
We moved in to a house earlier in the year with this being our first winter in the house.
One thing we can't seem to do is get the front room warm.
Initially I'd put this down to various drafts from poorly fitting doors however these have all been sorted....and the front room is still tepid :-/
Gas fire fitted, its one of these hole in the wall types i.e frameless without any glass which I guess is the main problem.
Looks like its a class 1 flue, when I had a look above the fire I was expecting to see a connector plate as with previous fires but looks like its straight vented up the chimney.
Guessing most of the heat is just escaping straight up the chimney rather than being radiated back in to the room with old schools fires.
Any ideas on how we could improve on this?
Would a steel liner work any better, other than the obvious ripping it out and putting a wood burner in 😉
Similar situation, so interested in others views. I have seen you can get gas log burner like fires, which I presume are more efficient than an open flame gas fire
Yep we had one in my first house - was actually pretty good once it got up to temperature it radiated heat pretty well.
It struggled a little in really cold weather, but that generally in the depths of winter for one or two evenings.
The rest of the time it was absolutely fine.
This new fire is a different league - we had it on for around 3 hours today before it began to lift the temperature in the room.
Not sure whether there are many options available, I might start with fitting an anti down draught cowl to see if that eliminates any drafts coming from down the chimney.
The thing I find completely mad is that the chimney breast was still absolutely fine to touch despite the fire being on all that time.
Gas fires are, on the whole, a fairly poor solution for heating a room. They're not particularly efficient and the rooms they are in are generally larger than most others in the house so you have a perfect recipe for never really heating the space up.
Log burners are good - we have one in our living room and it can be uncomfortably warm if you really load it up - but they're a lot of work in terms of both installing and then actually using day to day. They're not cheap to run either unless you know a man who knows a man who knows someone with access to logs.
If you've got central heating in other rooms I'd suggest adding a correctly sized radiator or two to the living room. You can then bin the gas fire, block off the flue and make something decorative in its place.
I have a gas fake open fire in one room. Its supplemental heating only ie you still need the central heating on and there is a big radiator in the room. I have a gas fake log burner in another room - that will heat the room but slowly.
Old fake open fires are grossly innefficient
Sounds like it could be a DFE fire.
Decoratative fuel effect, the clue is in the name!